Where am I?

Beeker

Beeker

Aquariaholic
Oct 8, 2004
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I am setting up my 10 gallon tank and trying to do a fishless cycle. I put in the water, set the heater, got the filter going, and squeezed some gunk off of my other tank's filter into this tank. I went away for a week and let it run. Now I'm back and I tested the water. There isn't any ammonia showing up on the test but the nitrites are high. Where am I in the cycle? What do I do next?
 
I believe you need to keep a reading of the params daily for a fishless cycle..... While I believe it's good that you squeezed stuff from the other tank into this one, I don't really think it's enough.... I don't think you can really be 100% sure where you are in the cycle being that you haven't seen the first week of it (daily).
 
I didn't provide ammonia. Should I start over? I'm in no rush, of course I would love to see the tank up and running, but I'd rather do it right. I don't know how much ammonia how often. This is my first fishless cycle.
 
You need to dose with ammonia, enough test it around 4-5 ppm at time of dosing. You keep track of what you put in the first time, then as it declines, start dosing again. Since nitrites are already showing up, it's possible this will happen really quickly, but without it, there's not way to verify that the full set nitrifiers are present. Search on Chris Cow's Fishless cycling--there are several threads, and an outline of the entire process as a link.
 
I just tested the water again and it is reading very little ammonia and no nitrites. I don't know if it is necessary but I started over again. I squeezed some more gunk into the tank and this time I added ammonia. Should I start with totally new water and everything or just go with what I've got?
 
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You must know how much ammonia, NH3, you added. You need to add a teaspoon, then test the tank for NH3 to see how many ppm you get. If 1 tsp. gets you to between 4 and 5ppm, then you are good to go. If not, then you add a little more until you reach 4 to 5 ppm.
Once you get an intial reading of 4 to 5 ppm, you stop and start testing your water every day to get a full parameter reading. pH, NO2, NO3, NH3, and KH. When you see the NH3 start to drop, you add a little more NH3 to keep the readings at 4 to 5 ppm NH3 until the NO2 start to rise. Then you stop adding the NH3 and see how long it takes them to get down to zero. When you see the NO2 spike, and your tank consumes the NH3 added withing around 24 hours or so, then you are cycled. You can then do a MASSIVE water change to flush the NO3 and add fish. Continue to test daily for a week or 2 then test weekly as required.
NH3 is needed to feed the bacteria. Without it they will starve.
What you are doing with fishless cycling is esentially replicating a heavy fish load by adding your own ammonia, NH3. This replicates the waste produced by a lot of fish. Your bacteria will eventually start to grow and eat this "waste", the NH3 you added, and eventually grow in number to eat it all. Once your bacteria levels reach a # that will consume the amount of waste or NH3, then you have cycled.
 
Perfect post! Thank you for that information! Unfortunately, I bought a defective ammonia test kit at the pet store and I didn't realize it until I had a funny feeling that I was adding too much ammonia. I tested it with a new good tester and the ammonia, I think, is around 8! The nitrites are getting high fast but should I change some water to take out some ammonia? Or would that slow the cycle? Also, the ph is about 8.3. Why? Should I do anything about it, and if so, what?
 
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Beeker said:
Perfect post! Thank you for that information! Unfortunately, I bought a defective ammonia test kit at the pet store and I didn't realize it until I had a funny feeling that I was adding too much ammonia. I tested it with a new good tester and the ammonia, I think, is around 8! The nitrites are getting high fast but should I change some water to take out some ammonia? Or would that slow the cycle? Also, the ph is about 8.3. Why? Should I do anything about it, and if so, what?
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Personally, I would do a 50% water change to get the ammonia levels down to no more than 6ppm. You don't want to kill the bacteria with too much ammonia.
I wouldn't get too worried about pH right now, but it is definately something you'll want to look into. If you haven't got one already, get a good test kit. Test your tap water now, and then every 2 or 3 months. Do a full range of tests on it and write it down so you can refer back to it. AFAIK, a normal cycle shouldn't cause a pH increase of more than .6 or so. But at any rate, you need to know what your tap water is so you will know exactly how high it did go up. Know what I mean?
 
I got a better test kit and the reading is about 7.7 for both the tap water and the tank water. I did about a 30% water change and brought the ammonia down to 5 and also added more gunk from the other tank filter. How does that sound?

I will do the rest of the tests as soon as I'm done reading all of the directions and information and get everything organized.
 
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